Nissan named Victor Taylor division VP for U.S. manufacturing, supply chain management and production engineering, part of a new organizational structure aimed at bolstering its U.S. manufacturing footprint.
Taylor, a nine-year Nissan veteran, will focus on optimizing operations across all three of Nissan's U.S. plants, the company said in a Dec. 12 press release. He will also lead Nissan's U.S. supply chain and production engineering.
The leadership change comes amid broad company challenges. The automaker has been working on a turnaround since ousting its CEO Makoto Uchida and four other top executives in March, following a failed merger with rival Honda Motor Co. Nissan has been struggling financially since 2024, when dented profitability forced the company to begin scaling back global production with plans to reduce the number of Nissan plants from 17 to 10 by FY2027.
As part of the company-wide efforts, Nissan is transforming its U.S. operations and how it builds vehicles through smarter plants and greater localization, said David Johnson, regional SVP of Nissan Americas manufacturing, supply chain management, and purchasing.
"Victor's proven leadership across our U.S. manufacturing and supply chain operations will be pivotal in accelerating this transformation, strengthening production line agility, deepening supplier partnerships, and optimizing total delivered cost to ensure Nissan can respond with speed and precision to evolving markets," Johnson said in the release.
Taylor had been VP of manufacturing at Nissan's Canton, Mississippi, vehicle assembly plant for the last two years. On Dec. 15, Ricardo Anguiano succeeded Taylor as VP of operations at the $4 billion Canton plant, per the release. The factory employs over 3,700 people and assembles Nissan's Altima and Frontier models.
In July, Nissan said it would delay the 2028 production launch of two electric SUVs at its Canton plant by 10 months as part of a strategic decision, not in response to broader company changes, the company said.
